How will the Elizabeth Line affect London property prices?

Will the Elizabeth Line (previously called Crossrail) affect London property prices? Well, some studies are showing it already has, even before it is finished! So in this article, I wanted to share some of the main areas the Elizabeth Line is affecting, where to invest for the best returns, as well as how the Elizabeth Line will service London and commuters.

What is the Elizabeth Line?

First, a little history about Crossrail, since renamed the Elizabeth line, which will stretch more than 60 miles from Reading and Heathrow in the west through central tunnels across to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

The new railway – currently being built by Crossrail Ltd – will stop at 40 accessible stations, 10 newly built and 30 newly upgraded, and is expected to serve around 200 million people each year, which will bring an additional 1.5million people within 45 minutes of London.

The first phase was supposed to open in October 2018, but Crossrail Ltd then announced that more time was needed to complete the section through central London and new financing was agreed with the Government on 10 December 2018.

How the Elizabeth Line will affect transport to London

The Elizabeth line will increase central London’s rail capacity by 10%, the largest single increase in the capital’s transport capacity in more than 70 years.

The first big milestone will happen in the first half of 2022, when the Elizabeth line will launch a passenger service between Paddington and Abbey Wood Elizabeth line stations.

The next milestone is expected to be in autumn 2022 when services from Reading and Heathrow will operate through central London and access the new Elizabeth line central section to Abbey Wood. Services from Shenfield at this time will also serve the new central London stations, running through to Paddington Elizabeth line station.

The final milestone will be no later than May 2023 when the final timetable will be in place (source).

Highlights of the trains and stations

The Elizabeth Line will be creating 10 new stations: Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood

Each new station will have its own distinct character created by different architects which reflect the environment and heritage of the local area. For example, the new station at Paddington will echo the design legacy of Brunel’s existing building in the area.

While the new Farringdon station will take inspiration from the historic local trades of blacksmiths and goldsmiths, as well as the distinctive architecture of the Barbican.

At platform level, common design components such as seating, signage and full-height platform screen doors will create a consistent and familiar feel to the rest of the TfL network. Trains will run every two and a half minutes at peak time through central London

The state-of-the-art trains will be 200 metres long, twice as long as a tube train and can carry up to 1,500 passengers, walkthrough carriages like the London overground, and they will have air conditioning, wi-fi and 4G.

It is estimated around 200 million passengers will travel on the Elizabeth line each year

Train Journeys – the phases of the Elizabeth Line

Phase I

Trains will start from a new Elizabeth line station at Paddington and go through to Abbey Wood, a route that passes through main employment hubs such as Liverpool Street and Canary Wharf.

Example journey times:

• Paddington to Canary Wharf will take 17 minutes
• Bond Street to Liverpool Street will take seven minutes
• Woolwich to Farringdon will take 14 minutes

Phase II – East section

This section will run from Liverpool Street mainline station to Shenfield in Essex, passing through eastern areas such as Stratford and Romford.

Example journey times:

• Romford to Liverpool Street will take 27 minutes
• Stratford to Bond Street will take 15 minutes    

Phase III West section:

This route will begin at Paddington mainline station, splitting just after Hayes & Harlington, with one branch going to Maidenhead and Reading and the other to Heathrow airport terminals.

Example journey times:

• Tottenham Court Road to Ealing Broadway will take 13 minutes
• Paddington to Slough will take 26 minutes

Which Areas Have The Elizabeth Line Affected?

Postcodes with a Crossrail station have shown increases averaging 17% higher than the surrounding areas, with some centrally placed stations adding over 140% over the last 10 years.

Hamptons International investigated projections in 2012 that prices of properties close to Crossrail stations would rise by 25% by 2021. They found that rises in Slough, Woolwich and Uxbridge far outstripped that at 66% on average.

Headed East, one of the most significant regenerations associated with Crossrail is the Barking Riverside extension scheduled for August 2022. As part of a plan to bring almost 11,000 homes to the area, this huge development will result in jobs and a significant commercial influx that can surely only continue to increase prices. 

This should be incredibly transforming to have an area currently poorly served to have access to 2 major forms of transport.

The new Barking Riverside development is essentially the creation of a new borough with new homes, playing fields, eight new schools and a Thames Clipper link. The transport links alone will be a huge draw for potential buyers.

According to Evening Standard research:

• Over the past five years key locations have seen price growth of almost 50 per cent, despite Brexit and the pandemic
• The most affordable option is Abbey Wood, which straddles the London boroughs of Greenwich and Bexley, with average prices of a relatively modest £350,000, according to research by Savills on the price of homes within a kilometre of Elizabeth Line stations.
• And there is a decent choice of areas where you could buy an average home for less than £400,000. Most are right on the edge of London: Harold Wood and Chadwell Heath, both on the fringes of Essex, and West Drayton, in outer west London.
• The most central option is under-regenerating Woolwich, six miles east of Canary Wharf and in Zone 4, where the average price is £383,000.
• This table shows some of the most affordable areas impacted by the Elizabeth Line.

If you are interested in locations where prices are rising, in hopes of future price growth, many of the best performers over the five years have been clustered in west London.

The league table is led by Southall, where the launch of scores of modern, price-busting new apartments has helped boost prices by 48 per cent, to an average of £423,000.

Leafy Ealing Broadway has also performed strongly. Prices have shot up by almost 42 per cent to an average of £882,000.

A single stop away West Ealing has seen price growth of 16.4%, to an average of £707,000, while nearby Hanwell, has seen a 20% price rise to £597,000. Hayes & Harlington’s prices are up 36.3% to an average of £412,000.

The highest house price increase can be seen at Tottenham Court Road, one of the route’s flagship stations, with property prices in the W1 postcode currently averaging just shy of £2 million. This is a huge 140% higher than the wider borough of Camden that it sits in.

Other areas where properties within one kilometre of a Crossrail station have increased significantly include West Ealing, Twyford, Manor Park, Forest Gate, Abbey Wood and Romford all made this list.

In the last 12 years, there isn’t a postcode within this distance that hasn’t had an average price increase of more than £200,000.

Resources:

https://www.crossrail.co.uk/project/our-plan-to-complete-the-elizabeth-line/

https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/improvements-and-projects/elizabeth-line

https://www.mylondon.news/news/crossrail-elizabeth-line-finally-open-22169917

https://londonist.com/london/transport/everything-you-need-to-know-about-crossrail